Following up on my recommendation of my favorite Dvorak Cello Concerto, I'll bring to your attention a terrific recording having two of my favorite violin concertos. Sergey Khachatryan was the winner of the prestigious Sibelius Violin Competition when he was 15 years old(the youngest winner ever), playing among other pieces the Sibelius Violin Concerto. Three years later he recorded that concerto in Warsaw with the fine Polish Sinfonia Varsovia and also did the Khachaturian Violin Concerto for the disc. Beautiful, romantic playing, very well-recorded, and certainly a disc to be added to your collection.

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of American composer Samuel Barber in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Barber was one of the 20th century composers who never stopped composing beautiful melodious music which was sometimes derided as "old-fashioned" by snobbish critics.

I'll bring your attention to his gorgeous violin concerto in a performance by young Canadian violinist James Ehnes from Brandon, Manitoba with the Vancouver Symphony. This disc, which also includes the concertos by Korngold and Walton, two other composers who gave us beauty in sound rather than sterile academic exercises, won a Grammy in 2008, as well as the Canadian Juno award for Canadian artists.

This superb disc, which I'm listening to as I type, is available from Amazon and the other usual sources to give you a lifetime of listening pleasure.

Now for something a bit heavier: Mahler's mammoth Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection". I listened again to this at Easter, although Mahler's theme wasn't the Resurrection of Christ, but the journey of mankind through life, death and resurrection, as he saw it. These vast themes called for the full resources of the finest orchestras to be employed to the max, and my favorite version is by Zubin Mehta, who whips up the Vienna Philharmonic to play with more intensity than customary for them. Excellent remastered sound to match the intensity of the performance, and as is common, again we find no correlation between quality and price, available from Amazon sellers and other sources at bargain prices.